Solar Impulse: We’ll see solar-powered passenger planes within 10 years

Fancy a flight in a solar-powered electric passenger plane? According to the two adventurers behind the remarkable Solar Impulse plane completing a unique and fuel-free flight around the globe, that could be a reality within the next decade.

The co-pilots and founders of Solar Impulse – the remarkable solar powered plane that is making a ground-breaking flight around the world – have made a stunning prediction: There will be short-haul electric planes for up to 50 people operating within 10 years.

“This is the beginning of a new cycle,” co-pilot Bertrand Piccard told the Bloomberg New Energy Finance publication Clean Energy and Carbon Brief in an interview this week. He predicted a “new paradigm” of planes flying with no fuel, but being powered by batteries that are charged by solar power.

“Before 10 years’ time, we will have short-haul electric airplanes for 50 people,” Piccard said in the interview.

Piccard and co-pilot Andrew Borschberg have nearly completed the unique, 35,000kms flight around the world, which began early last year. The odyssey – interrupted by battery storage issues after a flight from Japan to Hawaii – will finish when the last leg from Cairo to the original starting point in Abu Dhabi is completed within the next week or two.

The 2.3 tonne Solar Impulse plane is powered by 17,248 solar cells and 4 lithium ion batteries connected to the electric motors that drive the propellors. It uses the batteries to provide the energy to fly through the night, where it slowly loses altitude. The solar panels provide the power to the electric motors and charge the battery during the day, when the plane regains altitude so it can use less power at night.

The people behind the project have always said that they are pushing the limit of the technologies, and it was not really expected that the world’s skies will be full of solar planes anytime soon, although it was thought that their work could lead to more efficient use of clean energy on the ground.

And indeed, Piccard and Borschberg are not predicting that passenger planes could fully refuel with solar power in long haul flights.

They understand only too well the fine lines they have drawn during their single-person long haul flights – some as long as five days – as they wait for the sun to rise and recharge the batteries. Using solar on wings to power a plane loaded with passengers is just not feasible.

But they do see the potential in using electric motors for passenger flights. With 97 per cent efficiency, they say, the electric motors are too good to ignore. And the electric motors and the batteries that accompany them can be charged with solar, along with any other source.

“Solar Impulse has shown what is possible. The industry now needs to take over… it will be interesting to see who does it first,” said Piccard.

The two pilots draw comparisons of their achievements to the Wright brothers in 1903, whose plane also flew slowly with room for only one pilot and in good weather conditions. But it has become the first solar lane to cross the Pacific Ocean, spending 5 consecrative days and nights in the air.

In doing so, they project team has helped develop batteries with a higher energy density and solar cells with a higher efficiency than those found on the market.

Their next project is to work with Solvay and ABB and develop an “unmanned solar-powered aircraft”, which will “run applications” beyond the capacity of today’s satellites. “In three years we will have the first prototypes flying,” Borschberg says.

“When the Wright brothers started to fly in 1903, it was the beginning of the cycle of aviation that put two men on the moon and allowed 500 people to travel intercontinental on the same airplane,” Piccard says.

“Solar Impulse is the beginning of a new cycle. We are in an airplane with one pilot only, in good weather, flying slowly like the Wright brothers but with this new paradigm of having no fuel.

“It will be very interesting to see where these new technologies will lead us. I am sure that before 10 years’ time, we will have short-haul electric airplanes for 50 people.”

Piccard describes the feeling of flying in a solar plane as like a science fiction movie. “It’s ethereal, unreal. The propellers are turning, there is no noise, no fuel, and it is running just from the sun. It’s like being in a fairytale, it’s so addictive.”

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.

6 Comments

Marcel 3 years ago

It is a truly remarkable achievement, proud of our Swiss pilots and engineers who had the courage to attempt what others claimed to be impossible. It will be amazing when commercial electric planes become reality. Much less noise, pollution and running costs but I also suspect improved comfort and reliability, not to mention maintenance…

Mike Dill 3 years ago

A number of people including Elon Musk think that electric planes start to make sense when the energy to weight ratio is about 400 or 500 watts per kilogram, or about twice the normal Li-ion energy seen today.

Horst 3 years ago

I’m loving the optimism, but I’m not going to get into a plane unless it is as sturdy (ie heavy) as a modern, already pretty light plane, I don’t think there’s a lot of meat to scrape off after the last couple of decades. That means that the energy requirements are not going to be dramatically different. In the end the reality is that flying is an astonishingly energy intensive activity, even if that energy is renewable, the more likely scenario is that flying for leisure and/or convenience will be just a blip in our collective history.

neroden 3 years ago

I have my doubts about 50-person electric planes within 10 years.

However, there is enough active research on 2-seater, 4-seater, and 6-seater electric planes such as the X-57 and the Pipistrel Taurus G4 (and Siemens’s electric motor designed for such applications, and so on) that I expect electric planes to dominate the recreational aviation market within 10 years. (It’s an easier problem.)

50-seaters will follow a few years later.

Carl Raymond S 3 years ago

Or, autonomous 4 seaters will make it so cheap to fly short distances, that there won’t be a need for bigger flights. People will go where they want to go, when they want to go. It’s the same as taxi’s and buses. If taxi’s didn’t have to pay for drivers, could buses compete?

Mic Galvin 3 years ago

While sand mining is impacting for solar, and birds frying, this is a great way for future flight and priority should be given into this due to the influx in air traffic probably increasing global temps 1C plus hydrocarbon pollution fuel dumping. However in the post modern world where jobs are not needs a good solid social security allowing travel and cultural exchange is a win-win, and also there is plenty of land if we were smart could even have more allotments in the cities. Localisation and small low impact options should be considered to build community resilience with change, lower cost of energy and food, gst?, allowing sustainable competitive advantage through the main market places to out compete import varieties undercutting our economies.